“What is it, girl?”

Tess barked and wheeled in the sand, her liquid eyes urging Neil into the dunes.

“Okay, I’m coming.” Smiling, he trotted after the golden Lab.

She bounded through the heath and stopped under a coconut palm, by a circle of blackness, a gaping hole in the earth. “A sink hole? Come away, girl.”

Iron jaws latched onto his wrist. “No, girl, it’s dangerous.” His protests died in the tumble of stone and gurgle of earth. A satisfied silence, and a thunderous belch rose from the void.

When the master said, ‘Fetch,’ Tess obeyed. She always did.

Born and raised in northern Australia, E. M. Eastick worked as an environmental professional in Britain, Ireland, and the Middle East before turning her hand to writing. Her creative efforts appear or are forthcoming in the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, The Literary Hatchet, and Mad Scientist Journal. She currently lives in Colorado.